22 NEW AND BABE MALAYAN PLANTS. 



a West African plant collected by Barter. All these separate 

 gatherings belong to distinct species, which merely have in 

 common the covering of the nut half way up by the calyx. It 

 seems probable that Bentham first employed the name leiocarpa 

 for the Hongkong plant and for that it had better be kept. It 

 has nearly entire small leaves, branches quite glabrous, flowers 

 in cymes of 3, axillary in the axils of full-sized leaves ; the fruit 

 has the nut covered for a quarter of its length only by the 

 cupshaped calyx and its wing is slightly narrowed towards the 

 base and acute at the tip. 



V. malaccensis, n. sp. V. leiocarpa, Benth. in part. (Malacca 

 specimens). 



A big climber, branchlets velvety pubescent. Leaves ellip- 

 tic acuminate, rather abruptly and bluntly, base shortly nar- 

 rowed, edge bluntly serrate, 2.5 to 3.5 in. long, 1.25 to 2 in. 

 wide, thinly coriaceous, drying dark brown, nerves 4 — 8 pairs, 

 prominent beneath, faint and sunk above, petiole pubescent 

 thick grooved .2 in. long. Flowers in compact axillary cymes 

 of about 12 or more, and about .15 across on slender pubescent 

 branches with small leaves about 1 in. long soon caducous so 

 that the branches eventually appear as panicles often over 6 in. 

 long. Bracts ovate acute, pubescent, pedicels .1 in. long, gla- 

 brous. Buds flattened at top, bluntly 4-angled, glabrous. 

 Calyx campanulate, lobes 5, triangular acute, glabrous with a 

 keel on the inner face near the tip. Petals much smaller, 

 spathulate bilobed, lobes rounded. Stamens a little longer, 

 filament slender, anthers small. Ovary immersed in disc, 

 hairy. Styles 2. Nut globose, covered half way by the calyx, 

 .2 in., wing oblong linear blunt, glabrous, not narrowed at the 

 base, 2 in. long, .3 in. wide. 



Singapore. (Cantley 190). Malacca. (Maingay 

 1669, 1148; 406, 408, 1670; Griffith). Perak. Larut 

 (Kunstler 3461, 7644), Batang Padang district (Kunstler 

 7750). Penavg. Chalet (Curtis). Borneo. Eejang (Ha- 

 viland 2863). 



There is a considerable amount of variation in specimens 

 as to size of leaves, amount of serrulation and development of 

 panicle. Some specimens have small but well developed leaves 

 on the slender branches which bear the flowers, but these are 

 never as large as the stem-leaves and appear to fall off very 

 soon. In many specimens I see no trace of these leaves, so 

 that tin 1 whole inflorescence forms a panicle with numerous 

 branches bearing the small scattered cymes. Occasionally the 

 branchlets appear to be glabrous. 



V. gracilis, liolfe and Merrill, is apparently closely allied 

 but the flowers are pubescent. I am very doubtful about V. 

 lucens, Mi<|. of Sumatra. The description is hardly adequate 

 and the only specimen 1 have seen in Herb. Kew has rather 



Jour. Straits Branch 



